


Twisting Wood

by Deannie



Series: Women on the Border [3]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7677511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ziva followed it. She didn’t think about where Gibbs and the rest of the team were, or why no one had come out to brief her on Tony’s condition. She didn’t think about anything, in fact, except the twisting wood and how a simple arrest had gone so wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twisting Wood

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: surgery. Part of my Women on the Border series.

She didn’t walk into the waiting room with blood on her hands. With blood on her face. No, Ziva David thanked the police officer for the ride and entered the hospital, going straight to a supply closet, where she took a pair of scrubs. She found the nearest bathroom and cleaned herself up.

She knew from brutal experience how these things went. He would be assessed, the bleeding stopped if they could stop it. It would take time.

And she would be ready, whatever happened. Because Tony wouldn’t want to see her covered in his blood and crying.

The waiting room was full so she stood against the wall. Across the room from her was a framed photograph of the Lincoln Memorial in the light of a sunrise. The shadows were dark and cold and she almost shivered at them before allowing her focus to be drawn to the frame. The wood was intricately carved, like the outside of a mosque or the vines on the page of an illuminated Torah. Endless and twisting and beautiful. 

Ziva followed it. She didn’t think about where Gibbs and the rest of the team were, or why no one had come out to brief her on Tony’s condition. She didn’t think about anything, in fact, except the twisting wood and how a simple arrest had gone so wrong.

As far as she and Tony knew, Lieutenant Harold Manchester was little more than a disgruntled office worker, and apprehending him should have been a case of walking up to his front door, serving the warrant, and leading him away in handcuffs. Instead, what they found was a man who knew they were coming and would not be taken alive. 

> There was only one place to hide when Manchester began shooting, and Ziva found herself jammed up against Tony as they took turns returning fire from over the back hood of their car. 
> 
> “You know, I didn’t think the pencil pusher had it in him!” Tony called over the gunfire.
> 
> “I suppose it will teach you, again, not to judge a book by its cover,” she replied, popping up to take her own shot at the house. Through the windows, they could see that Manchester had thrown mattresses and furniture against the walls to protect himself from fire.
> 
> “Hey Harold!” Tony shouted into a lull in the gunfire. He was looking around—for more cover or to get a lay of the place, she did not know. He nodded to her, though, and she readied herself to take a shot as soon as it was provided. “Is that any way to greet somebody!?” 
> 
> “I know why you’re here!” Manchester screamed. Tony gestured for Ziva to go left. “You’re here to take me in!” He gestured right and tapped his own chest. “I won’t go!” Tony gave a silent count of three and, instead of diving to the right as he had told her he would, he stood straight up.
> 
> “I’m afraid you don’t have any—”
> 
> Ziva was already in motion, unable to change direction. She could only fire—too late—as Manchester exposed himself long enough to fire three rounds into Tony’s torso and catch a bullet from Ziva’s own gun in his head.
> 
> She did her job, watched Manchester drop, saw his head fall to the side as the hole in his forehead spilled blood out in traces, as intricate as the carvings on that frame. And then she forgot her job entirely and knelt beside her partner.
> 
> “Tony,” she growled, pulling his shirt open and looking at the two slugs that dented his vest, sucking in her breath at the hole that went straight through the seam of kevlar and into his side, where he too was bleeding. “You are an idiot.”
> 
> He laughed into the pain, squinting against it. “Yeah, well. Got the job done, right?” He craned his neck, and she followed his gaze to see a pair of children, perhaps six and ten, huddled together on the sidewalk across the street. Well within Manchester’s range of fire. 
> 
> “Damn it, Tony,” she whispered, working the vest off of him and stopping cold at the way the collected blood poured out of it like water as she pulled the protective garment away. 
> 
> Tony tried to catch a glimpse of the injury, but fell back, his eyes starting to glaze as he stared into the sky. “I think we might have missed something here,” he said dreamily. “Abby didn’t say we were walking into Waco…”

And then he was gone and now Ziva was waiting. Alone.

“Is there someone here for Anthony DiNozzo?”

Ziva looked away from the frame and found the owner of the voice, a young man who looked harried and covered in blood. 

“I’m here for him,” she said, rushing up. The young man looked skeptical. “I’m his partner,” she explained, fumbling for her badge. “Ziva David, NCIS.”

The man nodded. “I’m Dr. Michaels,” he said. “Mr. DiNozzo is stable for now, but we’ll be taking him into surgery to repair some damage to his liver—that’s what caused the blood loss at the scene.”

“Will he be all right?” It was a stupid question. She knew it when it came out of her mouth, and yet it came.

Dr. Michaels cocked his head. “I can’t say for sure—injuries like this are never 100% until we get in there, but his vitals are coming back after a transfusion and he’s obviously in good shape.”

“So there are no guarantees,” she said sharply, nodding. “Can I see him? Before he is taken away?”  _ Before I do not have another chance. _

Michaels didn’t seem to like the idea, but something in her eyes must have convinced him. “Sure. Just a couple of minutes, though. We’re prepping an OR and we’ll have to get him sedated soon.”

She smiled tightly in thanks and allowed herself to be led to one of the small, glassed-in bays. Tony lay with his eyes closed on the gurney, his face too pale. There were wires attached to him in many places and a tube under his nose blowing oxygen. A bag of dark red blood dripped through another tube into his arm.

“Mr. DiNozzo?” Dr. Michaels called. Tony’s eyes remained closed. “You have a visitor.”

Tony smiled in his darkness. “Hey Ziva,” he whispered, sounding weak, but with that endless laughter in his voice. He finally opened his eyes as she took his hand and looked up at her. “Zigged when I should’ve zagged.”

She squeezed his hand hard enough to bruise, her anger clear. “You did neither, which is the problem,” she grated.

“Hey, I’m wounded here!” he protested weakly. Sighing in relief when she eased her grip. “Come on. It was a residential street,” he argued. “We couldn’t let him just keep shooting.” He chuckled again and Ziva felt a single tear betray her. “Didn’t know he’d hit the one seam in the whole damn flak jacket.”

“Mr. DiNozzo,” a tall blonde nurse said, leaning over them and checking the cannula under Tony’s nose. “We need to get moving.”

Tony nodded. “Gotcha,” he agreed, squeezing Ziva’s hand. “I’ll be back soon, okay?” he told her, his voice too gentle. Like he was lying. “Tell Gibbs it wasn’t my fault, will you?”

Ziva sniffed away her tears, stuffed her worry and anger into her heart, and glared. The nurse fitted a needle into the port in his IV and pushed the plunger. “I will tell Gibbs the truth, Tony,” she promised.

Tony groaned, his eyes closing and his hand already growing lax in hers. “Great,” he murmured, dreamy again, as he had been on that driveway, bleeding out. “Now he’s gonna be mad at me.”

He snored lightly, and Ziva couldn’t help the slightly hysterical giggle she let out. The blonde nurse gave her a sympathetic look. “We’ll have someone come get you and take you to the surgical waiting room in a few minutes,” the girl promised. “If you can just step back into the waiting room?”

Ziva nodded compliantly, retracing steps she didn’t remember taking the first time, until she found herself leaning against the same wall, staring at the same, intricate frame.

Tony would be all right. He wouldn’t leave them. He wouldn’t leave  _ her _ .

With a deep breath to clear her mind, Ziva followed the twisting wood.

*******   
the end


End file.
